Ep. 28: ATP Barcelona and Munich | WTA Stuttgart

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (00:00.302)
I figured this may air in the next few weeks, so I'm retiring this darn shirt after that. I'm getting back to my UNC and KU.

Alvin Owusu (00:04.6)
Cool.

Alvin Owusu (00:08.697)
Well, I can't actually see it in the shot, it's a, you're a.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (00:11.301)
Even better. I'll point out to it and make a note to it, but trust me this thing is getting retired My last check went in last month buddy, and I'm gonna tell you right now. I'm thankful and indebted to Duke I am also back to being hashtag. I hate Christian Leighton er 1000 % so just just want to put it out there

Alvin Owusu (00:29.304)
I hear you. And you know what, and with that, I'll say welcome to the people. We're just going, I don't feel like starting over. It's a Sunday night. We're doing the late night stuff here and welcome to another episode of the best of three podcast. Alvin, that's Tory, per the usual. And we got a little smorgasbord of an episode here, I think, touching on a few things. Last time we were together,

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (00:32.855)
Got that right.

Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (00:47.94)
Yes, sir.

Alvin Owusu (00:57.314)
we got to talking about Arter Fies a good bit and we had some conversations after that recording that led us to feel like we needed to kick the tires on a different age-based conversation around the men's side of the game. But before we do that, that'll probably end up being in part two of this podcast, so you'll have to come back and check us out for that one. And part A, wanted to just like, you

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (01:10.85)
sure.

Alvin Owusu (01:24.301)
Talk a little bit about where we are in the time of year. I've been thinking a lot about, you so in my regular space, I've been, you know, the last 15 years or so working kind of at the intersection of sports media and technology. And during that time, there was a time where I spent about four years working for the NBA. you know, there's a thing we used to say, it's like, you know, the league is always going to be doing well as long as LeBron and Sefer are on television, one. And two, it's even better when they're playing each other.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (01:49.047)
Right. Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:53.133)
So at a macro level, it's like you need star power and you need rivalries. And even in today's...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (01:58.723)
100%. I think rivalries even more than star power, especially at the collegiate game and the little bit the pro game to me, and you know this better than me, Alvin, the pro game because of the free agency, it's not the same. It's changed quite a bit. There's still the historic Boston, LA, right? But at the same time, it still revolves around the stars. And if I could kind of do a crossover on tennis, how

Alvin Owusu (02:14.911)
It's changed. It's changed a little bit.

Yep, but they're selling that to like an older generation. Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (02:28.64)
great were than the doll Federer matchups. I mean, they were epic. They were classic. I mean, some instant classics. And it's not to say they weren't great Federerotic or Novak joke Novak and Rafa matches. There's been a bunch of great matches. Rafa, Fed playing for Vrinka. mean, there's been some great like, that's a good match. But historically and the ones you remember, Agassi Sanders, right? You got old school.

Alvin Owusu (02:31.957)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (02:45.079)
Sure, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (02:56.428)
Well, beautiful thing is always the contrast, right? So, you know, I go back to like 2014, 2015 NBA season of the first season that the Warriors won the championship, And they played the Cavs in the finals. But you have this very, the juxtaposition of like LeBron as this superhuman type of being that no one could imagine being LeBron James, right? Because he's not like the rest. Well, closer to you, you guys about the same size. But Steph is the guy down the street.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (03:14.977)
Right.

Right.

Yeah, yeah. He's a little bigger than me.

Alvin Owusu (03:23.764)
Right, the Steph is the guy down the street that you could, like, you could try to shoot threes from the other side of the cul-de-sac and pretend like you're Steph Curry, right? He's like almost like every man's superstar. And so, but that juxtaposition between those two really made, you know, that kind of four year stretch really a special part, like a special time at basketball. And, you know, I say that to say, like, as we come out of the Nadal Federer, again, like juxtaposition, right? You got a lefty, a righty, one.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (03:51.766)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (03:52.197)
looks like he's not trying that hard. I know that bothers him a lot. And the other one looks like he's trying exceptionally hard. all of it, all the opposites that juxtapose against each other make it for a beautiful clash that makes for a great rivalry. And then obviously being at the top of the sport for so long. With where we are right now in the tennis, especially on the men's side, specifically on the men's side, where we have...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (03:54.88)
you

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (04:09.134)
Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (04:16.254)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (04:18.38)
21 year old Carlos Alcaraz, he's already got four slams, right? And then you've got Center, a little bit older, about two years older, and he's got two, three slams now? Was it three? Two, three. Just two? Just this year? got them both this year. Geez, okay, well, yeah, there's that.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (04:22.036)
Yeah. Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (04:31.669)
I think it's two. But I think it's closing in. Yeah.

If it's if if then he's he may have three. Australia was before. I know it. Yeah. Right.

Alvin Owusu (04:39.592)
No, it's three because he won the Australian. Yeah, he beat Meti last year, then won the US Open and then won Australian Open again. Yep. So but he's right there. Right. So we're talking about this potential rivalry moving forward and there's some other players stepping into it. But I feel like that we're getting that back right now, like, you know, especially after the last few weeks with with Carlos doing so well on clay and really seeming like he's finding himself finding his joy again. I think with

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (04:59.111)
Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (05:04.86)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (05:08.809)
That's kind of maybe the benefit of Yannick being out for a little bit, right? It's like giving Carlos some space to just kind of be Carlos again, like now that he's decided to do it.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (05:11.583)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that, you know, as the ATP works, he may have been at one and Carlos could have been in another one at certain points of time. But to your point, I think Carlos has taken advantage of a centerless ATP right now and good for him to kind of find his stride. I was actually concerned about it because you would have thought as potent as his game was, he would have posted a little better result in both Indian Wells and in Miami and he did not. So

Alvin Owusu (05:42.61)
Right. Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (05:44.733)
I was actually happy to see him take advantage of, you know, they say in hockey there's times when there's, you know, it's seven on six, right? And during that timeframe, when you get that guy, that guy in the pillie box, you you don't know, you know, gotta take a bet. Once that time is up, that guy comes out of the pillie box, it's back on. I mean, you don't have that advantage anymore. and best belief, Alvin.

Alvin Owusu (05:54.281)
Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (06:04.383)
Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (06:12.507)
that sinner's training somewhere. I mean, he's not sitting on a...

Alvin Owusu (06:14.903)
yeah, they posted videos of him. He was training at the Monte Carlo Country Club, indoor, as the Masters 1000 was ending. Right, so he's... Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (06:20.283)
That's right. Yeah.

Thank you. He's playing like, buddy, like I missed a step. I'm in Monte Carlo. I'm putting a little bit of the clay from in my tea in the morning. I'm just making sure I'm at one with what's going on. Don't think I'm not watching. I'm not scouting, buddy. I might be scouting and working harder, you know, because I'm watching you guys. Don't think that I am taking it easy, you know, and I think that's something that for Carlos, he really needed to kind of step up a little bit.

Alvin Owusu (06:30.526)
No, yeah, he's

Alvin Owusu (06:43.859)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (06:49.204)
Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (06:54.916)
in the time off to to really kind of establish himself again because while he had four and center had two going into this last australia you know let's face it center has won since wimby of carlos center has put the smack down you know on may tp tour and doesn't look like he's wanting to relinquish it anytime soon so it's a big time for him to downshift a little bit for carlos alcaraz

Alvin Owusu (07:15.837)
Right, and I like that.

Yeah, and I think the last few weeks has really kind of done great things for Carlos, right? see, know, we won Marti Carlo, ended up losing in the finals today in Barcelona to Holger Rooney. And it was a, you know, he might have been a little banged up, but Holger played well. Like, Holger did some things tactically, like he held his, really held the baseline well. And, you know, I think Holger is another one of those guys, same age as Carlos and, you know, kind of like that's what we're going to be talking about a little bit later on. But I think the guys who are...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (07:29.243)
The room is.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (07:38.0)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (07:48.126)
having the opportunity to kind of fill that space and really create a four-year kind of window of players between Yannick being on the older side and Art Turfis being on the younger side. Carlos has played two weeks in a row now. So I think it's exciting. Ika's coming, mean not Ika, pardon me. Cinder's coming back on May 4th. He's gonna be playing in Rome. He's gonna play Hamburg and then it's yeah. We got one more biggie. We got Madrid right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (07:48.251)
Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (07:59.836)
Sure. That's two short weeks away. Two short weeks away.

Alvin Owusu (08:18.01)
next week, believe, then Rome, and then it's on, right? So, yeah, I just wanted to say that. I'm excited about it. I love the idea of these guys starting to fill that space. The top five, top 10 is looking a little bit different now, and it's...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (08:19.139)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (08:27.694)
Yeah. Yeah. And, and it needed to be right there. I've got two things I want to add to the conversation. One we'll get to later and that's father time is undefeated. Right. And you have to understand at some point as great as the goats were in order Roger, right. Next and better than right Rafa. And then of course our current goat slash may go down as the best of all time just because of his

championship record in Novak Djokovic, it's good to see a turnover, right? The tour needs to turn over. In fact, I'm gonna give a shout out to Serena one more time. I was actually disappointed that more players weren't taking her spot during her twilight, right? Her sunset years. And the fact that she was able to still hang showed you not only how good she was, but hats off to her.

but also how unwilling so many of the ladies were for not removing her from her post, right? And the men I have seen, we gotta be honest, Alvin, we're gonna do the celebration ceremony for Rafa this year, right, at the France, well deserved, by the way. And I remember back in 05 when Skull played him, it was a phenomenal match. He has been out there since then and memory serves, he won the French N0.

Alvin Owusu (09:39.709)
Yeah, it's exciting stuff.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (09:52.856)
if not 05. I'm pretty sure it was 05. He'd already won at least one if not two and had been winning fringes ever since. Now I say that to say that's almost for Rafa roughly 20 years. 20 Alvin 20. And the guy did not miss a beat save for a few surgeries here and there and some other things. You gotta give it up to the durability and the just the consistency. We're the ones the things we're arena for now.

Alvin Owusu (10:07.689)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (10:22.741)
You of course look at Serena for and not to ship back and forth between the WT and ATP. But we are now seeing a new order in the men. I am happy to see the new rivalry with Yanuk and with Carlos because tennis was built on the rivalries. I go back when I started watching and it was Mack and Bork, I mean back in the early 80s. mean that was prime time TV man. And Mack even says a little part of me

Alvin Owusu (10:41.927)
What, not even?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (10:53.364)
died when Borg retired and Borg clearly retired a little early but I said to say that Matt Connors was good tennis. Clearly Matt Spielander had a phenomenal run there in the middle 80s. There was some great tennis and then of course Andre and Pete. mean but you start looking at the rivalries that's what kind of helps make the game and so it's good to see tennis have some rivalries again. I would love to see a few more spoilers right before we really set in on

Alvin Owusu (10:55.655)
Right, yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (11:21.654)
Carlos and Yannick to be, selfishly. I don't know you may want to get to it, that's, but I love the fact that those two are peaking toward that, but I would love to see four or five more really make the top 10 really well-rounded and make it to where that rivalry is not just a, let's just, we can't wait to get to the final. No, dude, you're gonna be lucky to get to the final and you're gonna be better for it because you've been tested.

Alvin Owusu (11:22.159)
Ian, that's part I wanted to... Yeah, no, I don't...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (11:51.637)
And now this final is going to be off the chain because, because the quality get there was phenomenal. And that to me, and like back to your NBA comparison, you look at those, some of those great years of, you know, going back to the old school Lakers in Celtics, some of the matches, some of the games threes out of fives, four out of sevens to get there were tough. You know, you go back into the, the piston era, right? In the, in the late eighties and early nineties. And then you go to the era when the bulls started coming around, right?

Alvin Owusu (11:54.503)
Well, that was some of the that was some of the.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (12:21.661)
And then you started having, there were people forget, know, New Orleans slash Utah was rough. You had to get through Utah out in the West. You had to get through Cleveland in the East. There was no, there was no cakewalk to get to some of these, to some of these Eastern and Western Conference finals. And so to me, as you mentioned with the top players, to me, it was even better because you didn't know if they were going to make it out. There was a lot of game sevens out.

You know, teams were happy to have won their one home court advantage, right? And it kept going back and forth. So I just say it to say, that's what makes sports captivating because you didn't know. Now when you got that team that won, you're like, oh yeah, they won a couple of them real bad. How about that playoffs? That was a tough game. And I liked that because as a former basketball player myself, I really appreciated the different.

styles and don't think the other team wasn't watching your game seven, right? While you, while they finished up in six. And those are the kinds of things that I think hopefully tennis can just ease into a little bit before everybody kind of resets the pecking order.

Alvin Owusu (13:30.888)
Yeah, but well, before, you know, I want to kind of just put a little bit of a bow on the events that we had this week. You know, we're talking about Barcelona. Good final, I think good showing for kind of that particular cohort, right? know, Carlos played Arthur again in the semifinals and then the Holger in the finals. So that's a good thing for tennis, you know. And then on the other side, the other 500 in Munich, I just, was watching, this is a funny one. I'm watching Alexander's Verov, right?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (13:52.338)
Yeah.

Right.

Alvin Owusu (14:00.911)
And ironically, both of the onesies in these events, right? Alex is in Munich, Carlos is in Barcelona. These are both home events for both of them, right? And it's very interesting in that like our tour moves around, so you get the geographic element to it. yeah, it's, Carlos, very similar to Rafa obviously, right? Like the lead up to the big event, the French Open.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (14:09.823)
Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (14:15.013)
Right. Right. Little bit of home court, little bit of home bay. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (14:28.335)
It's mostly on home turf, right? You've got, you know, Monte Carlo is not far from Spain, right? Barcelona is in Spain. We're going to Madrid next week. It's in Spain. So it's like a, it's a lot of healthy home training. Yeah, exactly. So, but like the same thing can be said for Alexander Zverev over in Munich, right? So they're playing, he's playing against a Italian-Greeks four. I think this was in the quarters and I'm watching the match and you know, it's an interesting match.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (14:30.524)
Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (14:39.346)
It's home tournament, practically.

Alvin Owusu (14:57.551)
only because of the personalities that are involved, Talon and Alex have this, they have this history of like, Talon always plays him tough. He had match points on him, think at friendship in last year. He just couldn't get it done, kind of choked. That's what it comes down to. And I think Talon is like your, we all have times in life where we have imposter syndrome, right? And I think Talon Grigspor is like the, he is the personification of

imposter syndrome and a professional tennis player. He's got the goods. He's got the goods. He just can't see himself as a player who has the goods. And it's taking him so long. His trajectory has been very odd in that he peaked a lot later, quote unquote, later than players typically do. And I did see an interview once where he was like, I just don't really believe in myself all that much. was like, it shows.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (15:29.934)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (15:40.591)
Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (15:46.956)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (15:54.318)
It shows, so in this particular match, two things that I noticed. One, Talon's up a set in a break, he's serving four at five, four in the second set, and serving volleys in the first point. This is some pretty slow clay here in Munich, right? Catches Alex by surprise, first volley, drop volley, clean, great. Okay, next point, serving volleys again. Ends up with a short forehand and just does not do enough with it.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (15:59.504)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (16:08.736)
Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (16:19.772)
Dubs

Alvin Owusu (16:23.906)
Alex rips the passing shot with the backhand, crowd goes wild. Exactly, exactly. It's like anything you can do here, And then of the next, we go eight straight points, no points won by Talon Greaves for it, not until he gets to like, he's serving at five, six, like trying to hold this thing together.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (16:27.715)
The fact that he went to the backhand is all, it's all I gotta say.

If you could have blown a dandelion in the forehead.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (16:44.876)
Right, right. And even the breaker, button the breaker score like 7-2 or 7-3. mean, it like it was going away.

Alvin Owusu (16:48.825)
yeah, was, but it was like two versions, was two people doing the same thing, playing extremely tight tennis, but give it to Alexander Zverev, he's just better at it. Like he will almost force himself right. His tight game is.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (17:02.625)
Right. His level is better. His tight level, his tight game is 90 is the honor scale versus the regular class. 93 % and Talon is there at 89, not quite making the A. Totally get it. Great name, by the way, Talon. Great name, the eagle claw. I figure a claw, you know what mean? Was he Netherlands that he's from? Got to be. Yeah, that name just sounds, it sounds Dutch. Anyway.

Alvin Owusu (17:16.332)
Exactly. And he comes in. Talon's an awesome name. There he goes. He is. Yes, I believe he is Dutch. Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (17:30.573)
And that kind of a match up, know, hey, first of all, let me not forget to say hats off to Ben Sheldon for reaching the final, you know what mean? On the clay. I mean, I was like, hey.

Alvin Owusu (17:40.121)
first American man to reach a European clay court semi-final, before he even made the final semi-final. So like, he's doing the things you wanna see, yeah, on clay.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (17:45.311)
Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (17:50.367)
Love that. Clay, of all the things I would think he would not reach a final and do well in, which just shows you that, you know, if Ben puts his mind to it, very happy to see him raise his level in the clay, adapt, bodes very well for his long-term career, by way. I don't want to get off topic, but very, very happy. been a big Ben Shulkin fan for a long time. Love his dad, love his family. Just very, very happy to see him doing his thing.

Alvin Owusu (18:17.413)
No, let's dance off topic here. Let's dance off topic. Why do you say that you're surprised, not necessarily surprised, but why does the Clay Court success shock you?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (18:28.95)
Three things right off the top. Number one, Americans historically have no patience on the clay. They do not have, they're not very adept on the clay. They don't grow up playing on it enough. Now know Ben grew up in Florida for a good chunk of his years, but he was in Atlanta. I think he was born here in Atlanta. So he's been a good time. We don't have that much clay core here in Atlanta. So between death and over clay, not much in the States period, right? Let alone where you grow up.

Alvin Owusu (18:44.622)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (18:52.386)
Right, definitely no right play. Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (18:59.017)
So I'm looking at no patience, not very adept at the footwork and the play development of the clay. And number three, he's a big server with a big forehand. So at some point, it's common sense slash training would tell you, go with your guns. Hitch your big serve, big forehand, look for the plus one. And not saying that he doesn't, but it's just to say typically.

This is a time of the year where Americans skip ahead, play one or two to play the requirement, and they start getting ready for the Stella Artois or Queens Club or whatever, and get ready to play Wimby and come back to hard court. And that was so surprising because the fact that it was a stat shows you how often it happens. We almost hibernate during the clay court season, we as American players, and don't really dig in.

Alvin Owusu (19:32.867)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (19:40.814)
So, in that-

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (19:55.754)
and say 40 to darn near percent of the year is on clay. 40. We've got if I want to improve ranking development my own mentality for 10 years at this game I better learn this red clay stuff and figure it out.

Alvin Owusu (20:02.403)
Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (20:12.494)
So that's the, so that was the reason why I asked the question, right? Because I think Ben, I think when Ben hit the, when he hit the tour, the whole thing was like, man, that serve is big, man, that arm is live. And what I've seen from Ben over the last, let's call it 18 months, is almost a, I'm not gonna say regression, but like a commitment to find B game. Like he's become so much more steady.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (20:34.493)
Yeah. 100%.

Alvin Owusu (20:39.106)
And then you start to add in, he can actually run that forehand up cross-corner with some decent spin. And he moves pretty well. mean, he moves very well, right? He's not maybe like, yeah. that's why I asked like why you were surprised because from what I've seen over the last, let's even shrink it to the last nine months, I'm not actually all that surprised because he's kind of going down that path of like, I wanna be a guy who shows up.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (20:44.032)
Yep, yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (20:48.433)
for a guy his size. Yeah, he's big boy.

Alvin Owusu (21:05.947)
all year round on all surfaces and that might require toning down some of the emphasis on the big stuff, which I know we've talked about before we don't love, but he is becoming a more well-rounded, solid, weak-in, attempting to be a weak-in, weak-out player.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (21:20.651)
Yeah. I think the player that's that comes to my mind, Alvin, and again, I've got a few years on you. There was one German player that won Wimbledon back to back at 18 and 19 years old. He may have been 17, 18, but either way, he was pretty young, still team. Boom, boom. Boris did not win another slam for four or five years, but when he did, I want to see what the US opened about three four years, maybe four or five years later.

Alvin Owusu (21:37.719)
Boris Boom Boom Becker.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (21:49.479)
Boris had complete game when he finally won that next slam. And while I was so impressed while he was great serve, he stormed the net, he was diving on grass, and old school Pat Cash and others. But he made a point to say, you knew there was only one way he was gonna win and that serve was massive. Now, in four or five years, you saw a very complete, a very veteran, a very full package, Boris Boom Boom Becker.

Alvin Owusu (21:54.231)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (22:17.841)
to the point where he kind of lost the boom boom nickname because he was so patient. There was a bunch of matches. He would go long first sets, seven, six, maybe six, four, seven, five, and he might even lose the first set. But then you knew he would take the vest off. And now he was like, and the old sweater vest. And then Boris started to work. He was like, okay, I'm warm now. Let's play some tennis. And you were like, this is like a whole new Becker.

Alvin Owusu (22:21.78)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (22:34.336)
The old vest, the old sweater vest.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (22:47.696)
Ben is showing that in less time. You can't say Ben didn't have a live arm as Boris. mind you, not two Wimby's, but it's a different time now. The game is so much better and so much deeper. And I would tell you, hats off to Brian for making sure he understands that about his game. And you just can't live, so to speak, and feast your famine on the hard court season. And I like what this final says about his commitment to get better on the play.

Alvin Owusu (22:57.014)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (23:16.869)
I like what his results will teach him to believe in himself in the clay court season coming forward. Quite frankly, Alvin, I like what this says about his chances in the French because for a player that's hanging right above top 10, let's be honest, most top 10s, you don't really have Vegas odds on winning the French, but if you have a little momentum and the guys across the net know it's okay to lose to you.

Alvin Owusu (23:30.176)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (23:46.466)
because you're playing well right now. That bodes well going into the French open. He went, well, but no, no, it's not that I give him the chance of winning the French. I give him a chance now. And all he needs is to get through his draw, have somebody knock off the seed, the higher seed in that draw, and he might just have himself a chance at the semi. And at that point,

Alvin Owusu (23:52.162)
I don't know if I wanna go that far.

Alvin Owusu (24:13.441)
It could be one of those, it could be one of those scenarios where like, you're looking at the rankings right now, you see how the seeds are kind of shaping up for the French Open. Like if he catches somebody like a Jack Draper in the round of 16 or quarter or something like that, like if Jack gets that far or like Jack's seeded so high that he can't hold that seed and like a quarter opens up or maybe Novak is not where he needs to be yet. So his quarter opens up. I could see him, I could see him sneaking. mean, he's made a few, he's made two semis of Grand Slams. Sure.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (24:14.871)
It could be one of those tournaments.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (24:23.336)
dude. Man.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (24:36.131)
Thank you. Sneaking in, hey, maybe even draw in an Alex de Menard or even a fellow countryman like Taylor or like Tommy. You can't say he doesn't walk in that maxi and I don't have a chance. I, go ahead.

Alvin Owusu (24:46.761)
Tommy. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (24:51.009)
I just, yeah, it's just, yeah, I mean, I'm with you as far as like he could do his job to hold his seat and then take advantage of something that opens up. When you start getting into the like, do I feel like his chances are decent against someone like an Alexander Zverev or a Sinner or a Carlos or even a Runa or a Feast, we start, I feel like their adaptness on the clay is just a little.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (25:14.998)
Feast, Feast, say yes. Runa, it's gonna be tough for him. Runa loves to run. But you get the other three you mentioned. Obviously Zverev, tough. He's a clay court. Patience is his middle name. Obviously Alec Risen Center might be tough sledding. But, Caspar Root, dude. He would pay good money if he could find a way to guarantee Caspar Root. And I only say that to say Alex, Alvin, that Alex Zverev is just at the cut.

Alvin Owusu (25:28.574)
Maybe even Caspar Roode, like there's a lot of guys there who can...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (25:43.717)
that because it's clay and because it's and he's a veteran right everybody else is fair game here's what I learned when I was on the tour several years with some players there's this talk around the locker room and what you always want the competition to say about you is he's playing well right now meaning meaning it's okay to lose to you right now

If you're getting beat routinely, if there's blood in the water, it's almost disrespectful if you could knock that guy off during that timeframe. That's why it's so important to win, at least win the match you should win. When you hear those five words, so-and-so's playing well right now. It's almost an excuse to lose to that guy because he's confident. He's hitting the ball. He's feeling the ball. Whatever you want to call it, he's just playing well right now and...

Alvin Owusu (26:37.632)
He's playing too good right now.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (26:41.928)
I lost to so-and-so, but you're always playing well right now.

Alvin Owusu (26:43.838)
Or as the juniors would say, he's treeing a little bit.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (26:46.554)
is Tre'an. he's on fire right now. Now, you want that being said about you going into a tournament. Let's say this next week, is he playing Madrid? Ben? Let's assume he's playing. He goes in this tournament and has another nice showing. Quarters are better. I don't count him out. I don't count him out in the French. again, I want to get back to what we talked about earlier with those other guys.

Alvin Owusu (26:56.928)
I haven't looked at the draw, but probably it's thousand studies. Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (27:14.077)
I don't put Fees in there yet and I'm a huge Fees fan, but to me, Fees, like a Ben Shelton, they're trying to put themselves in the top five category. They're trying to be in that conversation and they have to beat the man to be the man to be in that conversation. You're not just going to inherit that due to a couple of decent results and no offense to Draper and no offense to Minsik, but those guys were a bit, were some one-offs at some one thousands.

that happen to take advantage of and Mnstik I'll give a ton of credit because he beat Novak

Alvin Owusu (27:46.975)
I'll actually give Jack Draper more credit than I'll give Mintzik because Jack has actually been putting it together since like right before Women of last year. like he's had some really, he's building,

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (27:55.102)
And fair enough, I'm getting at the tournament itself. He inherited a pretty good draw and things turned out well for him going through. He knocked out a few seeds, don't get me wrong. What I'm getting at is it seemed like everybody laid up goose eggs, including Zverev and others, in that tournament. And I'm speaking more to those guys aren't, they haven't done as much since on the clay and now we're going into I would love to draw.

Jack Draper. I would love to draw a Jakub Mensinger. I would love to draw some other guys in that term if I'm playing well and I'm over Clay Court. I was impressed when Ben beat Sarundalo and I'm like and that tough second set we won a long breaker I was like you know what this tells me the kid can be patient if he has to. This told me and Sarundalo's not he's not a you know he's not a Gustavo Quirin but he is Latin American.

good on clay and patient. And it told me that if you can be a Sarundolo type player on clay in that kind of a match, you've got patience when you need it. And I love the fact of what it said for Ben as a young American who we as Americans historically haven't been known to be very good clay court.

Alvin Owusu (29:13.312)
Well, as an aside, I'm starting to believe that Serendolo's flag is giving him a little bit too much of a clay court bump. Because I even, on this very podcast, in this very seat, I called Serendolo a proper clay quarter. And now when I look back and I go, you know, he's actually like, he's kind of like, he's one of those guys that's he's Latin, but like,

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (29:18.301)
I hear you. You were waving his flag two weeks ago.

Alvin Owusu (29:42.175)
Not, but not. Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (29:43.328)
He's top 20 in the world. His ranking now is a little over baked. He's 20 in the world. He's not 10. He's not three. He's 15, whatever it might be, 13, whatever he is right now. Solid, very solid. But he's the litmus test for the 20 to 15 in the world. He's not five in the world. And I think that's the issue. And I love the kid. I think he's a good little player. He's a little older than you think. And we'll get that later. But he's also...

Alvin Owusu (29:49.247)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's solid. He's solid. Nah, he's... He's solid.

Alvin Owusu (30:04.531)
He's older than you think. He's like, we'll get, yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (30:09.369)
He's, he's maximized his profile. love your term. He's maximizes profile and good for him. Hey, he's put himself in the conversation in the quarters of some of these kinds of tournaments. think Ben is trying to regain form from that. What was it? Semi of Australia and a few other terms here back. He's trying to regain some form to let everybody know it wasn't a fluke. And I think that he's well on his way doing it at, at, at my opinion, at a very unlikely event, on the clay.

Alvin Owusu (30:20.635)
Absolutely.

Alvin Owusu (30:38.461)
So, yeah, last thing from Munich before we swing across Germany over to the women in Zugart, but Alexander Zverev playing in Germany is a vibe, man. It is a vibe. It is like, he's their guy. He can do no wrong. I mean, he does some wrong, but in their eyes, he can do no wrong. And I'm watching it, it's like, check the weather, it's like 58 degrees, he's got the long sleeves on. It's like.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (30:38.929)
They're, they're immune to go ahead.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (30:51.214)
Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (30:56.398)
Yeah.

Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (31:06.415)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (31:07.515)
looks like he's trying to hit a ball through water. It's muggy, it's Germany to the T. And his girlfriend's in the crowd and she has these very distinct dark facial features. She looks like a Bond villain's girlfriend. The whole thing just gave you are now in, you go from watching Barcelona, just change the channel and now you're in Germany and it's very different.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (31:09.742)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (31:22.51)
Right right right right. Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (31:34.564)
Yeah, yeah. You're all up. Bond girl villain, you mean. Bond girl villain.

Alvin Owusu (31:35.368)
like very, very different. I like that whole, like, I love that, I love that. I love the uniqueness of the.

Or no, a Bond villain's girlfriend or something like that. Like, yeah, yeah,

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (31:46.937)
Bond villains, sorry, sorry. Bond villains girlfriend, 1000%. And that's a certain profile of a girlfriend. You gotta have that look. You gotta have that look. Are you gonna stab in the eye right now for talking about you like that? mean, seriously, if you won't, I will. It has that kind of a...

Alvin Owusu (31:51.543)
Yes, that. Exactly, exactly. It's the look, it's the.

Alvin Owusu (32:02.075)
Yeah, she might. She might. It's like, I'm glad you, I'm glad you, can get that all, you know, at some point when we, we'll put the, we'll put the picture up here and everyone will understand. She's a, she's a beautiful woman. By all accounts, I'm sure she's a great person.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (32:11.905)
Right, right, right. She she is. I saw that as well. And quite frankly, I was a little bit impressed when I saw her. I'm like, good for Good for Sasha. Yes, he's a good looking brother. But it looked, it harkened back, and I gotta put one more plug to my main man, Morat Safin. It harkened back to the days where Safin had two of those femme fatales in the stands waiting in the same box, sitting next to each other. You were like,

Alvin Owusu (32:22.173)
Hey, mean, dude66, top five tennis player in the world, has made like $40 million in his...

Alvin Owusu (32:39.426)
Exactly. Was that Australian Open when he pulled that? I think it was Australian Open. Right, exactly. Okay, before we finish up on the things that happened this weekend, Stuttgart, right? So Stuttgart, the women's WTA 500 event there, it's a one of a kind, right? It's indoor clay.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (32:44.627)
The fact that I don't remember shows you that it doesn't even matter.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (33:03.211)
Yup. Yup.

Alvin Owusu (33:03.803)
very in this, they have the whole, it's light on the court, dark in the stands, very indoor arena style feel. It's the Porsche open, if you will, and they, it's so Porsche open that in the back, in the background, they keep the three Porsches for the winners, one for the singles, and then two for the doubles. Lit up, it's like play for your ride, yeah. And it's always a, for me, it's always a funny event. You know, it's the first.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (33:15.543)
Sure.

Right, Lit up by the way. Strong. You get one of those by the way if you win this thing. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (33:32.295)
proper European, I guess kind of European clay court event for the women. But a funny thing happened. The event's still going on, the final's tomorrow, so we've got Irina Sibelinka again in another final. She is the metronome for success on the women's tour. Playing against one, Yelena Ostapenko, who you, I think you made a little, think you laughed when we talked about Penko a couple weeks ago, and I said, I got time for Penko always.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (33:44.897)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (33:58.709)
Yeah, I did.

Alvin Owusu (34:01.935)
And she did the thing that she does, which is when she sees Iga, she takes Iga down. Everyone knows this stat by this point. She's now six and a lifetime against Iga Suyatek. And Iga could usually hang her hat on like, well, one of those was when I was like first coming up and it was on grass and the other ones were on hardcore. Okay, fine. We're on Iga surface on clay. Take some of that. Penko takes her down in three sets and it should have been two.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (34:03.319)
She did. She did.

Alvin Owusu (34:30.3)
Yeah, it's a very interesting, like some of it is like, it's bravado right? It's like Penko just brings this bully energy, almost like taunting her, but then the rest of it is the tennis. Like Penko does some things very specifically well that really feed into one, Ega's weaknesses, and also a little bit of her insecurities too. Yeah, I'll let you jump on it from there.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (34:37.855)
Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (34:45.417)
Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (34:55.617)
Yeah. No, I want you to actually keep going. I was going to make a point about the other side of the draw with Ekaterina Alexandrova on the other side of things, who took out JPEG and who's playing some good tennis right now. First of all, it's a matchup issue, right? And Penko, to me, if Yolanda plays Eega

Alvin Owusu (35:08.868)
Yeah, I mean, I'll take it like some of the.

She's playing the tennis.

It's a matchup issue.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (35:22.024)
first round or final, she believes she can beat Iga. It doesn't matter. Name the place, name the spot. No point, no doubt. So my point is that so she can blow off a bad week, a bad tournament saying, who's number one, two in the world? Iga Swatek, I got this. Like goes into that matchup like nobody's business. And I love that. That's a rivalry in itself, right? That you know that player just has your number. They just have your number. You know what mean?

Alvin Owusu (35:26.864)
She has no reason not to.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (35:50.131)
I feel like, and I don't know the stats per se, and I won't go into all the other players that are like that, because this one's so glaring, there's no need to, but I will say it to say she's the perfect foil for Ega, and Ega will have to master this kind of player to truly be a top player. And I feel like that's a great thing for Ega to kind of get her head around.

Alvin Owusu (36:10.916)
Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (36:15.087)
Ega to me is in this really weird space right now where she's complaining a little bit, complaining about the quantity of matches, complaining about the volume, complaining. She's just not really feeling herself right now with her, with her play. Her game is a little more aggressive, aggressively conservative. I think is the word I want to use with the phrase. She doesn't play offense. She plays such great defense that it looks like offense and

She reminds me of the Baltimore Ravens back when they had Ray Lewis. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (36:44.528)
Well, hold on, yeah, go back to that though. I feel like that's kind of the tricky part about Ega though. She has created this version of herself that exists against players who are like 20 in the world and worse. She actually jumps on those players and will play an aggressive brand of tennis, but when he gets into the meat and potatoes, maybe even top 10, that's where you start to see that kind of...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (36:50.663)
Sure.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (37:02.896)
Y'all hear that?

Alvin Owusu (37:11.995)
Yeah, you called it aggressive, aggressive counterpuncher, if you will. Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (37:15.185)
aggressive, aggressive defense, whatever you want to call it. I'm going to call it aggressive conservative play because let's be honest, her return side is much more aggressive than her serve side and her quickness and her track tracking down of your ball is phenomenal. Penko just has a different kind of a ball and Yolanda absolutely can. Yolanda has this ability very much like, and I'm going to go back to an old school male player that you may remember.

Fabio Fagnini and Fabio had the ability... Fabio was my absolute... He was the worst nightmare for a bunch of players because Fabio's... What you thought was his hard ball was his rally ball. And if he wanted to reach back and smack one a little bigger he could. And it was just this level of... I think that's as hard as you can hit the ball. Let's take it up a notch.

Alvin Owusu (37:46.425)
Hey, he's still, Fabio's still on the tour. What are we talking about?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (38:08.94)
And he could go, and I think Yelena has that. She's got that ability to go just a little bigger whenever she needs it. She can roll when she has to. And Ega, who takes the ball early, almost hits in the Pico's pace. Like, hey, are you trying to out hit me? You can't do that. You're using my pace against me. You know I got that. And I can slow it down or speed it up. And I love that about her knowing that. And that's why that matchup is so drastic.

Alvin Owusu (38:23.002)
And that's the weird match up part. You watch them.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (38:37.935)
That was a player years ago Alvin that had a winning record against Pete Sampras and people may not remember my main man Fabrice Santoro, but Fabrice had a winning record against Pete. Why? Because Pete always went inside out to the back end and Fabrice's back end was ridiculous. He had great returns. He sliced the ball back. How do you have a winning record on Pete Sampras? Well, I'll tell you why. He was a great matchup. Now much different than Iga and Penko Penko.

Alvin Owusu (38:57.028)
Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (39:06.959)
top five player you know what I mean? No question I hate putting that moniker on the female game because there's so many wanted guns. However, will not take that away from her at all. I'm saying top five with room to go right and she will clearly be a Hall of Fame player down the road. I'm saying it to say she's no Febreze. He was not in the realm of conversation of top five.

Alvin Owusu (39:08.58)
She's a former Grand Slam champion. Like she won the French Open.

Alvin Owusu (39:17.308)
Fair.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (39:34.894)
had the matchup on Pete all day long. Now imagine you have the matchup on the number one or two player in the world, six and oh at last count as you say. Now imagine and you still have room to go, but in my opinion, Penko is one of the spoilers I was talking about that the men's side needs. They need that player that can beat down that player. I think you mentioned Paul had a good matchup against somebody. I forget that was it, was it,

Alvin Owusu (39:36.889)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (39:53.219)
So.

Alvin Owusu (40:02.105)
Demonor's got Tommy Paul's number right now. Tommy Paul, against Tommy Paul. But Sinner also, mean Sinner, it's not really all that relevant, but Sinner also is like nine and against Demonor as well. It's very like, yeah, that's more of a, that's more, you can explain that one. That one makes a lot of sense. But I was kind of thinking about it with Penko, is it just an Ega thing or is it a?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (40:05.079)
D-Minor, D-Minor had that against who?

There you go.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (40:13.995)
Yeah, then a center, different when it's the top left. Right.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (40:23.937)
Yep. Right. It's just a lot.

Alvin Owusu (40:31.501)
you know, is it a sign that she's playing well? So I kind of look back to see how she does after playing EGAA. And it's kind of all over the board. Like there's a few times where she's lost the very next match and there's three occasions in which she's won the very next match. So it's just kind of like, you know, we ran into her when Matt and I ran into her in Charleston. Matt was like, you know, she seems to be moving really well right now. She looks like she's pretty dialed in. You didn't see it in the results there, but I think it's starting to.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (40:41.357)
Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (40:50.527)
Awesome. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (40:59.833)
It's showing up now. She looked like she was ready to go. I think, but yeah, the other side of the draw, it's almost, I'm not gonna say it's getting boring, it's just getting more more impressive how Aryna Sabalenka shows up on Sunday every single week in and week out. It's ridiculous.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (40:59.946)
Sure. Sure.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (41:15.437)
Thank

I mentioned to you she was the new Serena Williams and I think when I said it you didn't really understand the place I was coming from. It wasn't so much her game which is clearly there. It wasn't so much her style which is very similar. I was talking about a player that week in week out is always a tough match.

Alvin Owusu (41:25.155)
Serena. Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (41:46.707)
She just doesn't take time off mentally and competitively. And one of the big knots I have personally, Alvin, after watching women's tennis for as long as I have, the greats have always been there for 20 years. I go back to the Chris Everett Lloyd, Chris Everett later, Martina Vazalova days. And the reason I didn't give players like Tracy Austin any credit, Andre Yeager any credit, they're good players, Grand Slam winners. They did not have the staying power.

Alvin Owusu (42:05.463)
Naradzolova, Steffi Graf.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (42:16.767)
Mary Jo was a good player. I don't give her the same credit as the other players. You start talking about players that have done it 15 years, I give Lindsey Davenport that credit. I give Venus Williams that credit. These players have been there, done that for, for decade plus. Okay, Jennifer Capriati, can't kick her out of the conversation. Was there early? Had some things personal that she had to work through? Came back, was just as good, if not better. And then you look at the queen of all that,

Alvin Owusu (42:29.145)
Sure, sure.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (42:46.13)
Aretha Franklin, so to speak. And then you put that that crown on one Serena Williams. And Arena Sabalinka is starting to be that player, that goat that you will look back and say, yep, she did it. Yep. Yep. Yep. I've never seen. Yep. Arena again, of course.

Alvin Owusu (43:02.282)
I'm curious about the longevity with her because it wasn't like she was a phenom right out of the gate. She worked her way into it. I think she's probably closer to 26 right now. On the whole, I need to be much better about age checking ahead of time when I say things like that because I'm screwed a few of those up. I think she is kind of now the poster child for how one...

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (43:13.257)
Yeah!

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (43:21.799)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (43:31.243)
because of the advancements and the attention being paid to the off court training and how important that is and the strength and conditioning is, especially in the women's game, pushing the mean age a little higher for our top players on the women's side. I think she is the one kind of carrying that torch. like, this is all that it takes right now to be a top five player on the women's side.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (43:43.475)
Sure. Yep. Yep.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (43:53.865)
I am a former strength conditioning coach Alvin and I'm going to counter what you said. And first of all, you're not wrong. And I agree with you a thousand percent, but this to me is more about a future greatest of all time that is not right. This to me transcends what you're talking about. I don't disagree with the word you're saying, right? But what you're talking about to me, I think Madison Keys is a better example of pushing the envelope longer in her career where you might've thought she was done.

Alvin Owusu (44:06.614)
Hmm

Alvin Owusu (44:18.208)
Okay.

Okay.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (44:23.239)
Mind you, she was 18, 19, whatever, 20 years old when she played Sloan in the teens and several years ago at the US Open. But, and the fact that Sloan's still around, it shows you that the longevity is, to your point, still going on there. I'm talking about a young woman who is saying, I finally figured out me. And now that I figured out me, it's over.

Alvin Owusu (44:50.103)
So okay, she's 26 years old right now and I did fact check myself and I was correct. So let's say she started this at about 20, I wanna say 24 in earnest. it like two years ago is when she like, sure, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (44:58.598)
Sure, but Flash is at 22, right? And had a chance to, I think her dad died when she was like 19 or 20. You ever take, I think there was some issues there. And she had her kind of, her what I'm gonna call Roger Federer when his coach died kind of moment and Pete Samper's album when Gulley died. They had that moment where there's like, whoa, you know, I have all this invested in me and they, the people that loved me and supported me and cared about me, did not get to see it. But I think that's, we may come back to that as an episode down the road, but there was whatever it was.

Alvin Owusu (45:13.184)
Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (45:28.73)
It was a come to Jesus, so to speak, for arena with herself. And everything from the tiger, you know, tattoo to her mindset is now, this is about me. It ain't about you. It ain't about longevity, fitness, conditioning. It's about me.

Alvin Owusu (45:40.063)
Right, so then my question is, do you think she has eight, six years left of doing this? Can she do this for six years?

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (45:54.145)
I think she will do it for eight to 10 because it's as long as she is dialed in and committed to doing the thing. It will take something else that Arena chooses to get her off of this dominance and it will not be another player. That another player will actually help her. In fact, I'm worried about the lack of a player right now for her because I'm wanting that

Alvin Owusu (46:13.409)
think that's the kicker.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (46:21.902)
to really grab her attention. And really, to your point, the female side, the ladies need a couple of good rivalries, right? They need some people that are coming back. And unfortunately, because she's stubborn a few times, Coco's lost her footing a little bit here recently. You know, I love Jasmine. Jasmine's not going to beat Arena anytime soon on paper or on the court. It's just a tough matchup for her. And you start looking at others. On J'Boris fading, you look at...

Zachary's fading. There's so many good girls and even we're talking about players like What's what's my girl these had a nice comeback in in Miami, but and what kind of what a condos coming back right? They pick Jessica is doing great and that's gonna be a matchup in itself But that to me is a match for arena to lose not a matchup for Jessica to blow through

Alvin Owusu (46:59.296)
Anas Mova, Radhikanu, Anas Mova, Mir Andreeva.

Alvin Owusu (47:12.148)
You know who we're missing? just missing Atlanta Rabakina. No, it's Rabakina. It's Rabakina. Well, Rabakina is the person that can actually go through Arena. She has done it before. She can go through her. She's just not there all the time.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (47:14.68)
Naomi Osaka. we're back in the show. And Andreva, they can both be that Rebecca.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (47:25.966)
She has done it before.

She's gone through coaches more than she's gone through arena as of late. Just saying.

Alvin Owusu (47:32.764)
She's yeah, she's just not there all the time. And that's the that's part of the job, though. Part of the job. If you want to be the if you want to be the best, like you have to be able to do it for, you know, 40, 45 weeks out of the year. And that's that is the job. That is the job. Let's take a break. Let's take a break. And then we're to come back and we're going to talk a little bit about a little about age. You know, we you know, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, but I think we're going to dig into it a little bit about some of the some of the things that the numbers.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (47:37.765)
That's part of the job description, Alvin. Thank you.

Right? Yep.

Alvin Owusu (48:01.818)
H numbers tell you don't tell you about about men's tennis. So yeah, if you're with us, come back for part two and we'll we'll we'll dig into it.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (48:04.066)
Yeah.

Torrey "TH" Hawkins (48:12.086)
Boom.